«Ever since join­ing the Euro­pean Union, Baltic States have been us­ing fund­ing from EU funds to re­al­ize re­forms in ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, em­ploy­ment, in­no­va­tions and other sec­tors, re­duc­ing the dif­fer­ence be­tween GDP in­dexes of Baltic States and the av­er­age in the EU by al­most a quar­ter. Nev­er­the­less, sup­port from EU funds re­mains nec­es­sary to con­tinue devel­op­ment of Baltic States and pre­vent so­cio-eco­nomic dif­fer­ences with av­er­age EU in­dexes. Those prob­lems cause con­tin­ued em­i­gra­tion on the free labour mar­ket and make it harder to raise pro­duc­tiv­ity of Baltic economies. Be­cause of that, a strong Co­he­sion Pol­icy is vi­tal for fu­ture devel­op­ment of mem­ber states and the en­tire EU,» Lat­vian, Es­to­nian and Lithua­nian fi­nance min­is­ters men­tioned in their open let­ter.

In May 2018, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion will pub­lish pro­pos­als for the next multi-year budget after 2020. In prepa­ra­tion for that, mem­ber states and or­ga­ni­za­tions ac­tively form and dis­cuss their po­si­tions on the fu­ture of Co­he­sion pol­icy.

Fi­nance Min­istry in­vites or­ga­ni­za­tions, mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, res­i­dents and other in­ter­ested sides to co­op­er­ate and use op­por­tu­ni­ties to de­fend Latvia’s in­ter­ests and voice sup­port for strong EU fund­ing after 2020.

«Or­ga­ni­za­tions and res­i­dents are able to voice sup­port for the Co­he­sion pol­icy after 2020. Peo­ple are urged to voice their opin­ions through a sur­vey and thereby help form a gen­eral opin­ion of EU res­i­dents about the need for EU fund­ing,» said the min­istry. The sur­vey will re­main open on the web­site of Euro­pean Com­mis­sion’s public sur­veys un­til 8 March.